In some applications, wired or wireless user equipment (UE) may wish to transmit small amounts of data periodically or aperiodically with little or no human intervention. Such transmissions may be “mobile originated” and/or “mobile terminated,” and may be referred to as “machine type communications” (MTCs). MTC applications are often characterized as nomadic, distributed, and low mobility. For example, a UE configured for MTC may include a power meter or other sensor that collects information, and may relay this information through a network (e.g., wireless, wired, or hybrid) to an application that translates the information into meaningful data.
In some communication protocols, a UE will utilize a discontinuous reception (DRX) strategy to minimize power consumption. In such a strategy, the UE will spend some of its lifetime in a sleep phase, and awaken at periodic “paging occasions” to determine whether there is any information for the equipment to receive or for it to transmit. Current technology imposes a low upper limit on the interval between paging occasions (referred to as the duration of the paging or DRX cycle). Although existing DRX strategies may be sufficient for typical cellular phone and mobile computing applications (in which the user equipment may be easily recharged), a UE configured for MTC may have limited or no ability to recharge its onboard power supply during the device's lifetime.